Navi Mumbai: India captain Harmanpreet Kaur revealed that her approach during the match-winning partnership with Jemimah Rodrigues in the 2025 Women’s ODI World Cup semi-final against Australia was to stay at the crease for 30–40 overs, confident that the game would tilt in India’s favour.
Jemimah played a stellar knock of 127 not out as India successfully chased down a record 339-run target at the DY Patil Stadium, eliminating the seven-time champions on Thursday. With this five-wicket victory, India advanced to the final, where they will face South Africa at the same venue on Sunday — both sides vying for their maiden World Cup title.
“When I went in to bat, Jemi was already set at around 20–30 runs. She told me that if we both stayed for 30–40 overs, the match would turn our way. So, our plan was to take it five overs at a time and bat according to the required runs,” Harmanpreet said in a video shared by bcci.tv on Friday.
The duo put together a 167-run stand for the third wicket, with Harmanpreet contributing 89 runs, guiding India home with nine balls to spare. “Since our target was around 5–6 runs per over, we focused on scoring without taking risks. Once it was time to accelerate, I started playing my shots,” she added.
The victory was particularly emotional for India after a rollercoaster campaign marked by three league-stage defeats. “This isn’t a small win — it means a lot. We’ve faced many ups and downs but stayed strong and believed in ourselves. We’ll celebrate this moment, but the next game is equally important, and we’ll approach it with the same mindset,” the skipper said.
Reflecting on India’s famous 2017 World Cup semi-final win over Australia in England, Harmanpreet said the team drew inspiration from that triumph. “It feels great. Back then, our mindset was to play fearless cricket, and we followed the same approach here — fearless yet calculative. We trusted our batting and bowling units completely.”
“In batting, we consistently scored around 300 runs even on tricky pitches. There were games that didn’t go our way, but our self-belief never wavered. We knew we could turn things around — and that’s exactly what we did,” she concluded.
